April 22, 2012

Chuck Colson, 80, Dead: Taught us the art of the comeback, with a side of courage

It's not for us fellow myopic human beings to judge if Chuck Colson's conversion to evangelical christianity was sincere. Rather the pragmatic among us analyse this strategy for his dramatic comeback from being a Watergate jailbird to a leader of spiritual values. He is now dead at the ripe old age of 80, reports POLITICO. Defeated man tend to die much earlier, including by taking their own lives.

In this era when more and more of us are knocked out of our professional comfort zone, the Colson story has much to teach. Stripped of his former professional identity, in prison he found an entirely new one. He made it work.

As I struggle with career upheaval in my own way in the 21st century (Download Geezerguts) I have been inspired by Colson. In fact, he had replaced comeback Dominick Dunne as a role model for me. Some of us recall that Dunne was arrested for drugs in an airport while members of his family watched. He sold his dog to get money for the substances he needed. Then there he is penning articles on the melodrama of law for VANITY FAIR.

Colson's journey became so riveting when I realized that, after prison, he went out there and stood toe-to-toe with the world. Watergate, unlike Dunne's fall, was no private matter. Actually it was a symbol of how power can overtake every decent human impluse in our wiring. Colson turned out to be a man of courage.